Right now, I’m sitting my kitchen trying to process the last twelve days. The moment when I left my school after frantically grading the last of my exams to start the trek down to Gainesville, GA for Training Camp feels like a lifetime ago. While, there is so much that I could write about (seventy-three pages of notes worth!), I am going to focus on how I saw God’s faithfulness over the last twelve days.
Last summer, I wrote down the following prayer:
Dear God, please help me find the community I have been searching for. You created us to live in community with one another. Help me to experience this to the full. Amen.
After moving back home from college the summer before, I hadn’t felt like I had a solid community yet and I was becoming discouraged. Not long after writing out this prayer, I felt an indescribable peace come over me. I felt confident that this void in my life would be filled.
And, I’ve seen His faithfulness in responding to that prayer ever since. This past year, God has given me the opportunity to connect with many different groups of people who have been faithful at pointing me towards His goodness and love.
Initially, when applying for the Race last summer, I was afraid that I would lose the community I had begun to form. But, as I wrote in my first blog post, “I realized that I would be limiting God and His ability to provide if I decided that my community should end here. See, God’s plans for us are bigger than we can imagine. Who am I to say that His answer to my prayer doesn’t extend into this new opportunity and that community that I’ve begun to develop is only the beginning of the beautiful plan that He has for me?”
God is faithful. These past twelve days have been evidence of that.
And, I’ve learned this week that His faithfulness is not contingent on anything I can say or do.
I know this because I lost my voice the second day of Training Camp. And, despite my inability to speak for the majority of the time I was there, I feel more known and loved by people I’ve only known for ten days than by many people I’ve known my whole life.
During one of our sessions part way through the week, Bill Swan (Director of the World Race) told us that “you don’t learn dependence on the Lord until you reach the end of yourself.” And, this was certainly true for me these past ten days.
In ten days, I saw forty-nine people come together as the Body of Christ. I saw them say “yes” to each other, and to me. And, in that moment, I saw the Kingdom manifested.
In a session on storytelling, journalist Kara Kirtley reminded us that “the enemy wants nothing more than to take away our voice.” God wants us to share the stories we’ve been entrusted with.
So, while my voice might not be back fully, I am proclaiming God’s faithfulness in my life.
And, I am challenging myself in this coming year to seek out those who need to be heard and to share the stories of those who feel that they have no voice.
